


Top Shelf

by mysteryinc



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, alcohol cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 11:47:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13501128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysteryinc/pseuds/mysteryinc
Summary: Cyberpunk AU: Raven and Vernal's first kiss. Raven's about 28 or 29, Vernal is about 23





	Top Shelf

“I didn’t order this,” Raven said, shoving the drink back towards the waitress without looking up at her. It wasn’t just common sense that kept her from accepting strange drinks--it was a whole life of experience.

“From the woman at the end of the bar.” The waitress let the drink sit on the table, well accustomed to Raven’s mood swings. “She paid for it. Take it or leave it.”

Raven shifted, head tilting to give the woman a piercing view of glittering red eyes. Some said they’d gotten darker with the years, deeper and deeper red from all the lives she’d taken. The rumors weren’t anything she’d done a thing to dispel. Most were amusing, and a few made her roll her eyes. That one was a little of both.

The waitress didn’t stick around for a staring contest, and Raven went back to scanning the file she’d been chewing over all evening, ignoring the drink at the end of her table.

After about half a minute of that, Raven picked out footsteps, boots thudding purposefully on the wood floors towards her booth. The sound was rhythmic and loud compared to the shifting of light, half-assed dancing from a few awkward young couples in the middle of the bar. The dim lights cast a blue tint to everything that occasionally flickered purple, the colors soothing, despite keeping everything dark.

A figure slid into the bench across from her, lifting the untouched glass.

“I paid good money for that.”

Raven’s eyes never left her paper, but she had a knife attached to one hip, and a pair of guns in holsters hidden in the crevice of her black leather jacket.

“Quieter than I’d thought you’d be.” The woman paused, sipping from the glass.

“Can I  _ help _  you?” The words hissed between her teeth, grating even to her own ears.

“Is that an offer? I can think of a lot of things you could help me with. Just didn’t think Raven Branwen handed out favors so easy.”

Raven went deadly still for a moment, and then slowly closed the file and slid it off to the side. She set her elbows on the table, and leaned forward, fingers clasped. “You don’t belong here. I suggest you get up and move on, or I’ll snap my fingers, and half a dozen men in here will fight over who gets to make you disappear fastest.”

A wicked smirk crept across the woman’s expression. “I’ll take my chances.” She finished her drink without breaking eye contact, and Raven vaguely wondered how many of those she’d had.

“Mind if I ask why you’re taking that chance?”

The low rasp of the woman’s voice drew Raven in closer for a moment, and as a blue light danced across her features, she saw the faint outline of freckles scattered across the bridge of a soft nose, and her eyes dropped down to the woman’s lips. They looked cracked and dry, which struck her as odd for a moment, before she met bright eyes again.

“I don’t have a lot going for me. And I know this will only end in two ways. Either you’re going to kill me, which is fine, or I’m going to get very, very lucky tonight.”

Raven leaned back, sizing her up again. “Your math isn’t quite right.”

“How so?”

“There’s a third possibility. You could get lucky, take me to the room you’re scrounging in upstairs, and end up being such a bad lay that I kill you anyway.”

“That just makes my night even better.”

Raven cocked her head, shoulders straining at the red stitching of her jacket. “I don’t sleep with anyone who has a death wish. Makes for bad sex.”

“I don’t have a death wish. Just don’t have a lot going for me, either. And you’re pretty.”

Raven bit back a smile. Intimacy wasn’t something she’d had in a few years, and her defenses were dropping like rocks the more she looked at this girl, noticed the patches in her jacket, the fraying of her shirt. She grinned and smiled enough that at first Raven hadn’t bothered to notice how gaunt she really was, and yet there was a fire to her that called to Raven, like the flame in her own breast reached for this woman.

She remembered being where she was, with nothing but a sharp tongue between her and an unmarked grave.

That rabbit hole diverted the blush that had risen at the meager compliment the girl had thrust upon her, and Raven composed herself.

“Let me buy you dinner. You look like you could use it.” Raven had used the trick before, buying another woman a drink with her last four dollars to get a whole meal out of it. The trick was picking the right woman.

She handed her the menu, watching as her new companion hungrily pored over the options.

Raven called her waitress back over, and sent her off with the order of food to Junior. Anything brought to her table was cooked by him, and only him.

A short conversation later, interrupted only by the delivery of a huge plate of food, and Raven finally had the woman’s name.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Vernal said, pushing back her plate with a handful of fries leftover and the remnants of three large hamburger buns. “But I  _ did _  honestly want to sleep with you. Not just the food.”

“You’re welcome to when you’re more sober, and I’m more certain of that.”

“I could only afford the one drink.”

“You could afford a little patience, too. You interrupted my work schedule.”

“Lighten up. You’re Raven Branwen. No one is going to slap you on the wrist if you fall behind on reading.”

“And what are you suggesting?”

Vernal stretched, then stood up, offering Raven her hand. After a moment, Raven took it, letting the girl lead her to the empty-ish dance space with the milling adolescents who’d finally given up on starting a dance in this particular club on this particular evening. The music was too soft for that, with no surprises.

Vernal grinned at Raven. “Ever danced before?”

She thought back to her academy years. “I don’t dance.”

“Of course not. Don’t worry, this is slow anyway. You look tired, so I can lead.”

Instead, they ended up just swaying together, and Raven struggled to keep her eyes open as the seconds stretched to minutes. Warmth crept into her skin as she held onto this girl, and eventually she rested her cheek against the soft, short hair of her companion’s head, temples touching.

In another moment, they shared a clumsy kiss.

It stuck like a knife in her side, betrayal and regret mingling with the restless urge to do whatever she wanted, to forget about the family she’d cut and run from.

Vernal must’ve sensed her hesitation, because a moment later, calloused fingers crept under her chin and pulled her gaze down again into startling, bright blue. “You look far away. Is this alright?”

Raven made the decision then to crush her old guilt she’d carried with her for the better part of a decade. It was time to let that life go for good.

The threads of guilt snapped, as best they could anyway despite the fact her soul linked her constantly to the source of tension, and she bent down and took another kiss.


End file.
